Goblin Squad Member
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But nobody actually likes those terms in that arrangement, and I mostly just insist on keeping them consistent so we understand what we're talking about. So... crowdforge us some new terms! :)
'Havesting node' works for traditional mmo nodes , you could just put another word in front of that for the group nodes, 'Deep Harvesting node' . Or maybe 'Surface node' and 'Deep node'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We do not yet know, from what I have read, whether the prospector can move on to prospect more, leaving the guard detail at the rich node...
I think we do.
This blog updates some of the information in If I Had a Hammer.
Gathering nodes will often appear in hexes. These are very large sources of material (mines, stands of trees, magical essence junctures, etc.). The player must place a gathering kit of the correct type near the node. This spawns a storage object and some additional art to indicate that the node is actively undergoing gathering. Over time, the storage fills up with components that can be removed and carted off, and the total available components in the hex is reduced.
Meanwhile, creatures are drawn to the gathering operation (both spawning new attackers and drawing in nearby existing creatures); these are usually hostile, but may sometimes be allies if you have the right alliance ratings for the escalation cycle going on in the hex. These creatures will generally try to attack players in the area, but will destroy the gathering operation if no one is around, so it may require a lot of organization to try to .
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Goblin Squad Member
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... what resources end up being the most expensive? The basic ones. Anyone notice how in MMOs, copper ore ends up 10x more expensive than gold or mithral or whatever the high-level ore of the day is? Why is this? Because your second character will always be better off than your first, and savvy marketers know that you'll drop more gold on character number two.
Stephen Cheney addressed this very well in Goblinworks Blog: Some Good Reason for Your Little Black Backpack - Post #300.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You and I may try to discuss nomenclature over there and mechanics over here, but as you can see in both threads, some are apparently unable to resist mixing the chocolate & peanut butter.So... crowdforge us some new terms! :)Thread specifically for crowdforging harvesting terms here.
Ayup. I just figure that it might be easier for the devs to wade through the terminology thread once this one starts to go entirely off topic. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like the "level of the kit, not player skill level" idea.This idea would eliminate incentive to train in gathering.
As I said in my post, you have to train in the skill to 'harvest' in the first place, so it wouldn't disincentivize training the skill. However, it would disincentivize using the skill on any node that doesn't maximize your skill's use (i.e. a level 14 miner is almost always going to want to mine adamantite rather than iron). Or maybe it wouldn't even do that; in the end, if his company needs iron, he still 'harvests' it faster than the level 2's, and thus will get on average more 'gathering nodes'.
This system would also incentivize people to specialize in crafting the 'gathering kits', as their quality would have a large impact on the operation and high-quality kits would nearly always be in demand. That does have the downside of making the lower-quality kits less valuable than they were before, decreasing the "multi-layered" market where every kit was the best for someone. (i.e. bringing a level 14 kit to the iron ore node didn't have a better effect than a level 4, and the level 4 is cheaper, so don't use the more expensive one).
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Goblin Squad Member
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The market will likely dictate what gets mined. The 'top end' ores shouldn't always going to be the most efficient economically.
Yet another EVE example. Right now I have my mining operation out in Null. I have access to all the top end ores (arkonor, bistot, crokite) in the belt/anomoly, but I choose to mine the mid-level ores, especially hedbergite and hemorphite. Why? They offer the highest isk per hour, 5% higher than arkonor, 15% higher than crokite, and 18% higher than bistot. If I am a gatherer and iron extraction is worth 20% more per hour than adamantine, I'm going to mine iron instead, regardless of if I am rank 8 or 14.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe it's just me, but the developers seem to be spending an awful lot of time crafting a system that rewards ganking other players far more than exploration and adventure. This seems a bit odd when the basis of Pathfinder has always been "players v. Environment" rather than fostering intra-party squabbles. Granted, the move to MMO seems to require a degree of PVP, but that seems to be the emphasis here. The last RPG that I recall doing this was Ultima Online, and they tanked harder than that "teach a goblin to read" program I tried to set up.
And I don't think I fall into the "carebear" set - it's just that some of us have jobs and can't sit online for 47 straight hours leveling up to the point we won't be immediately assassinated on our first ore run.
It doesnt require a "degree" of pvp but rather the whole thermometer...
Pathfinder is not a PVE game, even paper and pencil... You are always fighting against the DM... in perspective that is. When you fight a dragon, the DM is supposed to play it to the best of its abilities or something is lost.
Also its a skill based game.
Catch up on the blogs, I suggest starting at the bottom and moving up from there. No offense meant, but it seems like you have the concept of the game all wrong.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Outpost vs. Node
Gathering nodes are no longer large, freestanding sites that you might happen upon ...
Certain materials make sense coming from more established structures as opposed to being discovered unmanaged in the wilderness. For example, cotton is easier to farm than to find. The primary source for these sorts of materials is outposts: semi-permanent structures in wilderness hexes, linked to a holding in that hex. ...Bulk goods represent large quantities of food, wood more suitable to boards and beams than hafts and bows, low-quality metals for use in nails and other supports, any kind of stone for raising walls and building towers, and so on. They are very heavy and probably require a caravan to transport with any efficiency. ...
If outposts are for forests, mines, fields, etc., then I do not believe that they will actually be processing nodes of any type. I take this to mean that the resources processed by outposts are not single locations but areas. A forest or a quarry are a good examples. If the outpost is there to mine stone, it will probably be next to a large hill with exposed stone. The entire hill will the site of the resource. Likewise for forests. An outpost at the edge of your controlled hex will be processing the surrounding trees from the whole forest, not just one tree.
As a side note, I do not believe that a resource node (single location), if it generates a higher value node after the initial node is collected, will generate a resource different than the original resource first collected from the node. It will just be a higher value/larger quantity that when first worked. This justifies using a kit of special tools and equipment to get to the "surprise", because the ability of the character to extract the "surprise" alone just isn't up to the task regardless of skill level.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The market will likely dictate what gets mined. The 'top end' ores shouldn't always going to be the most efficient economically.
That's basically the idea I had vaguely floating in my head when giving the second example, about a level 14 miner harvesting iron anyways. Sometimes the higher level people will be mining the lower level things, I concede that. If the higher mining skill gives significantly increased mining speed, and access to higher level ores, is that not enough incentive to level the skill?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe it's just me, but the developers seem to be spending an awful lot of time crafting a system that rewards ganking other players far more than exploration and adventure. This seems a bit odd when the basis of Pathfinder has always been "players v. Environment" rather than fostering intra-party squabbles. Granted, the move to MMO seems to require a degree of PVP, but that seems to be the emphasis here. The last RPG that I recall doing this was Ultima Online, and they tanked harder than that "teach a goblin to read" program I tried to set up.
And I don't think I fall into the "carebear" set - it's just that some of us have jobs and can't sit online for 47 straight hours leveling up to the point we won't be immediately assassinated on our first ore run.
Cloak,
You might find that the posters here that favor PvP say "Pathfinder has always been a PvP game!" There are others that post here frequently that will tolerate some PvP in order to catalog all the tidbits about the world of Golarion in as much detail as possible...they get their joy out of the lore and world. Others hope Pathfinder Online will be a crafter's dream with a deep and rich crafting system where every crafted item is not only useful, but important and the crafters get as much recognition as settlement leaders.
Still others want to explore a new world...they will spend their lives outside the walls of most settlements just to uncover the map as much as possible. Many others posting here hope to see a system of music and dancing, theater and drama, bards and storytellers.
I hope all of these are true. The blog shows a lot of promise...we just have to add our comments and see what comes to pass. But anyone that tells you Pathfinder or Pathfinder Online is just one thing, doesn't know Pathfinder very well at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And some of us have been positively talking about the absolute necessity of non-consensual PvP for almost two years, yet still get painted as anti-PvP by folks who don't actually pay attention to what we're saying.
I like the "level of the kit, not player skill level" idea.This idea would eliminate incentive to train in gathering.
You still need a minimum skill rating to discover/begin 'tapping' any Node.
Honestly, the entire 'speed of extraction scales with skill level' aspect doesn't seem particularly crucial to me.
If balancing around that is a problem, I don't see a major problem with dropping it, even if that means there is much less incentive for high rank Harvester PCs to ever harvest below their max (or upper) resource tiers.
Or it's also easy enough to allow SOME scaling, but limited enough so that harvesting well below your tier will not be an ideal economic activity. The exact ratios can be tweaked, even adjusting for how the game develops in order to keep things 'balanced'. The point of such scaling would be related to the above discussion of mining lower-tier iron vs. fancy metals, a limited amount of scaling might often make it advantageous to mine a LITTLE below your tier (at higher speed due to your higher skill) but it is unlikely to justify harvesting the bottom of the barrel resources because the scaling won't fully counter the lower prices...
It just seems like tweaking the scaling curve can prevent max-tier Harvesters from overly disrupting the low-tier Harvesting competition, without any 'hard' limits on 'discoverer is the only one who can Harvest a Node' - Which itself has issues re: multiple PCs within current Company/Harvest Team, and also doesn't actually do anything to prevent High-Rank Harvesters from discovering Low-Tier Resource Nodes and hogging the entire Hex/Region's capacity and otherwise disrupting the market for Low-Tier resources. Tweaking the scaling curve can address the economic incentive for both High-Rank Harvesters 'taking over' a discovered Node, AND High-Rank Harvesters setting out to discover Low-Tier Nodes themself.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Speed and type should be orthagonal; If it takes Mining 14 to learn Adamantine Mining, that should be sufficient to learn the entire Adamantine Speed skill tree as well as the Adamantine Purity skill tree.
Meanwhile the Mining Camp Construction 14 skill is required to construct an Adamantine Mining Camp, but the stats of that camp are determined by the creator's skills in the various subskills of Camp Construction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe a mentor & assistant system could be worked out. While it's possible for the finder to work a node in whatever capacity they're able, they'd get more out of working with someone else. The lower-skilled collector benefits from the mentor's greater knowledge, and the higher-skilled collector benefits from having an assistant who can handle the less complex or sensitive tasks. Both get credit towards skill-completion deeds (formerly 'merit badges') when applicable, and the production of the node is greater than what either of them could have produced alone. By making these teams greater than the sum of their parts, settlements & companies will want to advance their apprentices rather than cutting them out, since the more competent collectors they have, the more quickly and frequently they can form these teams.
There could even be skill-completion deeds which require working X number of jobs with an apprentice, adding extra incentive for the masters to include rather than ignore the padawans. Besides the advantage in promoting interaction, such a deed requirement also adds verisimilitude. Even with real-world skills there are often points at which, in order to continue learning, one must teach.
Is there some reason why this wouldn't work? I certainly don't read every thread or even every post of a thread that becomes very long very fast, so maybe I'm missing something.
An example of why I don't like the 'discover must harvest the 'bonanza' node' approach,
if a character has ANY skill rating in harvesting, and they happen to be the first one in a group to spot/identify a node,
they must be the harvester, even if they don't want to... e.g. they tried harvesting earlier in their career but aren't focused on it now.
A group organized to go out and discover/harvest nodes should be operating as a group, and should be free to
allocate jobs as they wish, making it come down to the character whose location in the group happened to be closest to the node
and thus spotted it first, etc, just seems like it will cause more hassle than it helps anything.
Using the 'economic' type of incentives/disincentives as found elsewhere in the game design seems wholly preferrable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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An example of why I don't like the 'discover must harvest the 'bonanza' node' approach,
if a character has ANY skill rating in harvesting, and they happen to be the first one in a group to spot/identify a node,
they must be the harvester, even if they don't want to... e.g. they tried harvesting earlier in their career but aren't focused on it now.
A group organized to go out and discover/harvest nodes should be operating as a group, and should be free to
allocate jobs as they wish, making it come down to the character whose location in the group happened to be closest to the node
and thus spotted it first, etc, just seems like it will cause more hassle than it helps anything.
Using the 'economic' type of incentives/disincentives as found elsewhere in the game design seems wholly preferrable.
I have a feeling the toon must gather at the node first to find out it is a gusher. Spotting it first wouldn't be the qualifier.
Edit: or harvest or whatever the heck it will be called
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps finding a "mother-lode" type harvesting node would generate a "Claim" item in your inventory. This Exclusive Rights document could only be transfered to another player via a fixed-amount currency exchange. This would give your discovery real coin value, providing you with an option: harvest it yourself or sell your claim for profit. Either way, you get something out of it.
This would also bring in the profession of "explorer" or "surveyor". People who make a living going around gathering small nodes and finding mother lodes with the intent of selling the claim to it. Something you could do solo or in small groups and still be productive and helpful to companies that don't want to do the busy work of finding the mother lode spots and just want to set up a kit and go.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And some of us have been positively talking about the absolute necessity of non-consensual PvP for almost two years, yet still get painted as anti-PvP by folks who don't actually pay attention to what we're saying.
That link is pushing the 2 year mark... All I have seen is support for Non-Consensual PVP only so long as the attacker gets enough consequences to make him unplayable. All because of fear.
So yeah, your right, you support it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As hobs said in another thread, lets keep this thread on track. if you discuss PVP, discuss how it pertains to gathering/harvesting. All of these threads are starting to look the same with the same old bickering.
Anyway, so it appears, at least from those who are posting, that not many like the idea of "gushers" being BOP (Bind of pickup, aka not tradeable, ect) So I really hope GW looks at this and reconsiders. Basically it seams we appreciate the effort to protect newer/lower skilled players, but this looks like something we want to handle internally. As in, if we want to use lower level guys to "scout" an area and any gushers found go to the higher level guys for efficiency, then that is our choice.
As far as the naming issue or what to call it, I think gathering and harvesting is fine, just switch them in the blog. They fit the role and are easy to recognize and use. Just my thoughts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... if we want to use lower level guys to "scout" an area and any gushers found go to the higher level guys for efficiency, then that is our choice.
I hinted at this earlier, but I think I explained it better on T7V's forums.
Stephen Cheney's post really opened my eyes to something that I'd taken for granted before. In most MMOs, we have access to at least 1 Crafting and 1 Harvesting profession without having to "pay extra" to get them. The inescapable result of that is that most Achiever-type players (certainly including me) will go ahead and level up their Harvesting and Crafting skills, just because there's a big hole on their character sheet if they don't. By forcing players to pay XP to start a Crafting profession, they're actually freeing the players to not Craft unless they really want to.
I think the same thing can apply to Harvesting. In essence, they're creating a need for Harvesting specialists. I now think this is a very good thing.
Ultimately, I don't see what's objectionable or un-realistic about a limited scaling mechanic meaning that 'mediocre' Harvesting PCs will tend to work on normal Nodes at up to their own Skill Rating, while more advanced Harvesters will "TEND" to take over Gusher Nodes at the same Rating (below the rating of the advanced Harvester PC) ...Although the 'mediocre' PC can in fact also harvest those Gushers at their max resource rating. In other words, when you are good enough to first discover and harvest normal Nodes of Tier 100 resources you still will only be the preferred harvester for Tier 80 Gushers, because more advanced characters are preferred to deal with MASS QUANTITIES of Tier 100 resources. That's like comparing a 5th level Fighter to a 10th level Fighter, the 5th level Fighter CAN defeat Scary Monster X but when one expects to fight a group of 20 Scary Monster X's, a 10th level Fighter is probably better for the job. The 'mediocre' discoverer Harvester PCs will themselves be doing the same thing for lower tier Resources: that is just the pattern of the skill progression.
The scaling curve obviously needs to be tweaked for economic balance, but that is already true because even /WITH/ BoP as the Blog describes, it impacts on 'high rank Harvesters' who may choose to focus on discovering/harvesting lower-tier resources... as well as the dynamics for non-Gusher Nodes where BoP isn't even proposed to apply. Besides the exact ratio/form of the curve, there are other aspects of a Gusher Harvesting operation that are relatively fixed (transporting the resources to their destination) that will act as 'friction' reducing any theoretical economic advantage based on the skill scaling ratio (whatever that is). The additional cost of a Gusher Kit should bring the profit/cost ratio to higher prominence compared to non-Gusher Node harvesting, but it seems like the curve can still be set so as to achieve a reasonable dynamic, with some level of preference for Gushers to go to higher ranked characters but not totally marginalizing non-max-rank characters from any sort of Gusher harvesting, much less harvesting in general.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the character who discovers the node has "rights" to it for a set amount of time, it seems that both sides can be happy (if I'm understanding the mechanic and people's reactions to it). If the finder is lower level/skill and wants to work the gusher themselves, it's theirs...they have the rights to it. If there is a mechanic to allow others in on the operation, such as a harvesting partying mechanic, then everyone in the party could participate. If, rather, they decide to hand over their rights, like handing over a deed for that spot of land that the node is found on, then it allows scouts to find, claim, and then transfer or even sell their rights to another.
I'm likely overlooking some issue that would make this flop, but that's my two cents and it is 3:50 in the morning, so I may not be thinking through all the variables. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmm, don't you want the number of players out looking and finding nodes to determine rate/quality of resources collected - and not the highest rated extractors/skilled players speeding that up by using "searchers to transfer to speedsters"? That way it depends how many players are out searching and what the average skill level is? Doesn't that regulate better the speed of this operation? Over time then you want more of your settlement out searching in line with growth? Probably not described very well (hangover) but if finding is random then it's reflective of numbers searching at any one time as the bottleneck to node or fewer searchers but higher skill level so when they find they extract faster better, either way having lots of low levels out searching maintains a viable approach as well as a pressure for more in a large population to train up gatherer/harvester etc?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like the guy who found it to have a choice in what he wants to do with his find. If his only interest is search, discovery, and sell (the info about the location of the find), then I'd like him to be able to do it. If his interest is search, discover, and share (possibly gaining more from the superior skills of his friends), then I'd like that too. If he likes to search, discover, and dig/chop/prune it himself...he found it...that's up to him.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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For some reason, I think that a group of varied skills that prepares well and heads off into a distant wilderness hex to find rare high-quality things should not have a huge variance in output quality or quantity based on which member of the group got lucky.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like the guy who found it to have a choice in what he wants to do with his find. If his only interest is search, discovery, and sell (the info about the location of the find), then I'd like him to be able to do it. If his interest is search, discover, and share (possibly gaining more from the superior skills of his friends), then I'd like that too. If he likes to search, discover, and dig/chop/prune it himself...he found it...that's up to him.
Well the devs are saying it's finder's keepers so it does not turn into a production line of each character doing one tiny fraction in the process from start to finish I think?
Perhaps the finder has a "claim" (gold rush?) and must sell the claim for a nominal amount or fixed amount or increasing amount depending on how frequently they are selling these things (?) so there's cost to transfering it? I dunno that sounds like more complications. Perhaps best to stick with finder's keepers and then add the options over time?
For some reason, I think that a group of varied skills that prepares well and heads off into a distant wilderness hex to find rare high-quality things should not have a huge variance in output quality or quantity based on which member of the group got lucky.
*narrows and shifts eyes from side to side searching for the carefully placed trap* ;) Here goes my probability understanding...
That would be BCS (best case scenario) ie monster hex/perfect match of equipment and skills, size of group, no prior gathering - and hence for all members of the expedition the carrot is big to start it (unless they all write contracts splitting the work between members perhaps?).
Variance would be equally not huge for WCS ie safe hex, poor equip and skills of lots of gatherers from an over-gathered area but with less reward and more regular common stuff as opposed to rare/scarce (I forget the difference between these).
However choices would change depending on the information that such hexes are known to have been gathered from recently of specific resource type. How would this info be made available? A skill or just plain old observation reporting from collectable and recorded data truthfully submitted?! So variance might vary depending on the state of the hex and if that is known or not known then that's the luck of the dice if not known?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmm... Maybe every willing gatherer in your group can work the 'motherlode' at once? I feel like the 'motherlode' mechanic should incentivize group gathering over solo gathering, what with the requirements for guards and a temporary structure. However, as is the gatherers are all basically solo, with a group of guards moving in once someone discovers a 'motherlode'; the gatherers still remain solo during this event, unless the gatherers themselves are acting as the guards.
Would it be overly powerful for the 'motherlode' to give a small base amount, plus a scaling amount based on each gatherer's skill, starting at about 75% and going up to maybe 125% of what they could get working 'harvesting' nodes solo? The numbers are just guesstimation; the decrease in efficiency at first would be to balance it against the convenience of not having to run around and the increased protection afforded by having all the gatherers grouped together (even if monsters spawn to attack it, it's much easier to keep the gatherers safe if they aren't spread over an area, or at least I would think it is).
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Goblin Squad Member
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However, as is the gatherers are all basically solo, with a group of guards moving in once someone discovers a 'motherlode'; the gatherers still remain solo during this event, unless the gatherers themselves are acting as the guards.
I don't expect that the gatherers would really be solo. I'd expect to see what we saw in Darkfall: a group of characters from one company gathering in close proximity.
Hmm... Maybe every willing gatherer in your group can work the 'motherlode' at once? I feel like the 'motherlode' mechanic should incentivize group gathering over solo gathering, what with the requirements for guards and a temporary structure.
Thinking about the numbers, I'd guess that GW doesn't want a 50 person company finding a special node and draining it at 50X the rate of one operator. You could suck all of the iron resources out of a hex pretty quickly that way.
I'd counter-propose that maybe up to 3 people could be involved in extraction/harvesting from the special node and their average skill would determine the collection rate. That would be the finder + 2, which would allow the company's experts to improve the throughput.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ah, I'm not entirely sure how resource spawns in Darkfall work yet. I was under the impression that nodes would be a significant distance from each other and spread out a bit instead of clumped together. I was also assuming that only one person can interact with a node at a time. These things, if it works this way, would make guarding a large group of gatherers much more difficult. But of course, those are assumptions I made.
The argument about draining a hex with a ton of people certainly makes sense. Perhaps the output rate could be capped off, with the amount that can be gathered per unit of time at a set limit (for example, 20 novice workers or 5 maxed workers will give maximum output). People will have incentive to level the skill, as you increase efficiency and overall gains by having less people on a 'motherlode' to hit the limit. It will involve more gatherers than just the guy who found it, but he won't need to be left out of the find.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...I'm not entirely sure how resource spawns in Darkfall work yet.
Nodes are in fixed locations, and refill every three hours; all nodes of whatever type contain a standard, fixed, number of units when full, but someone else will have to tell you that number. Multiple people can hit a single node simultaneously, and will drain it faster.
It takes a set amount of time for each gathering action. You can drain a node in about 12-13 minutes untrained, and I believe 100 training cuts that time perhaps in half; that's another point for someone more knowledgeable to fill in.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Are resources of a like kind clustered in Darkfall...
There are both grouped and solo nodes, but only metal's scarce enough to make much of a difference between the two. Metal's inarguably the least-common node, so people keep their eyes--and their bots--trained on those spots where one finds clusters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's more like "a tree here, some ore nearby, some bushes, then more trees down there" Sometimes ore is clustered or not. It's certainly rarer.
My point about Darkfall was merely that even in a game that doesn't encourage group-gathering (there's no benefit to having 3 people work a node in DF, it just exhausts faster), people will cluster for common defense, or at least early warning. They probably won't be in sight of each other, but they will be on chat and in vent. When others are attacked, they'll react.
I'd expect the same behavior in PFO - members of a company will go into a hex to gather needed mats, with some members tagged as guards or a friendly guard company running patrols. When a special node is found, the guard force shifts to PvE, junior gatherers shift to be the security outposts, and seniors might even continue gathering in hopes of finding the next/better gusher.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thinking about the numbers, I'd guess that GW doesn't want a 50 person company finding a special node and draining it at 50X the rate of one operator. You could suck all of the iron resources out of a hex pretty quickly that way.
I'd counter-propose that maybe up to 3 people could be involved in extraction/harvesting from the special node and their average skill would determine the collection rate. That would be the finder + 2, which would allow the company's experts to improve the throughput.
This I really like and this it strikes a good balance between the lowbe getting credit and participating, and still gaining the perks and a higher level being there to help, without overpowering the newbe.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The argument about draining a hex with a ton of people certainly makes sense. Perhaps the output rate could be capped off, with the amount that can be gathered per unit of time at a set limit (for example, 20 novice workers or 5 maxed workers will give maximum output). People will have incentive to level the skill, as you increase efficiency and overall gains by having less people on a 'motherlode' to hit the limit. It will involve more gatherers than just the guy who found it, but he won't need to be left out of the find.
This is also a good idea. Having each skill rank/level give a set amount of gathering/min or something, and each "helper" adds his rae to it, up to a cap set by the hex or even the node itself. This way, like you said, the higher the skills, the less needed to "max" the withdraw speed, but still allows for lower skilled to add benefits. Great ideas you two. (look at above post)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Once you discover a gathering node, you'll have exclusive rights to it for a limited amount of time... You can't pass these rights off or have them stolen from you... Once you've activated the gathering kit, all bets are off. The speed of the gathering operation is pegged to your own Profession rating...It sounds like we're missing an opportunity to have Explorers go out and find the Gathering Nodes and then come back and sell that information to folks who are specialized in exploiting it.
I agree, this concerns me, as it seems to limit a character who just wants to scout out resources and report back to their faction's gatherers, or sell the information to someone who will get greater effect out of it.
Perhaps there could be a contract option to sell your exclusive rights over to another character for either some kind of profit percentage (harder to track) or just a set chunk of gold in payment. That would seem fair - if you find it, it's yours, but you can sell it too, because it's still yours.
Of course, if you can sell the rights, then I suppose you could also have an evil group threaten force (and maybe just camp out the area and kill you over and over) if you don't hand over the gathering node. A hitch for a weak combat character, but it also sounds like Meaningful Player Interaction. (Especially as it would give them reason to get protection from allies, giving everyone more purpose.)
If we are discussing "Gushers", why not compare to the oil industry?
There, small independent companies often work in marginal areas.
But when they find a vast field, they will often sell it to a 'major', sometimes retaining a minority stake,
because the majors have the resources to operationalize a large operation,
even though the independent found the field and 'could' try to run it itself if it wanted to.
It's not surprising or harshing on anybody's play if a rank 80 harvester who just recently became able to work on tier 80 nodes AT ALL
will sometimes end up pawning off a tier 80 'gusher' to a rank 100 harvester who has long been working with tier 80 nodes
and can more efficiently deal with mass quantities of tier 80 resources from a gusher than somebody who just reached rank 80.
Obviously, the specifics of the scaling curve matter, and it can be structured so that (in the above example)
rank 120 harvesters and certainly rank 140 harvesters will NOT be the likely 'go-to' harvesters to take over a tier 80 gusher,
because the scaling curve advantage tapers off enough so that the highest rank harvesters aren't getting enough speed advantage
to make it worthwhile to work so far below their own skill ranking, and likewise,
also minimizes the discrepancy between a rank 80 harvester working on a tier 80 gusher
and the higher ranked harvester /actually likely to work on it/, i.e. you don't need to worry about
massively superior rank 200 harvesters destroying the viability of harvesters at or near the resource tier
if the scaling curve isn't structured to make that a relevant concern in the first place.
That can mean the speed advantage is capped at a certain maximum, or just that the curve flattens enough that
the further increases in speed aren't really competitive against working in resource tiers closer to the harvester's rating.
(i.e. a rank 200 harvester would still be faster than a rank 140 harvester working on a tier 100 gusher,
but the rank 200 harvester really should have better things to do with their time.)
Again, with the oil analogy, a company can bid to explore/develop regions that will be at the limit of it's capabilities...
Or it can bid for regions not at it's maximum capabilities, but which it will be able to do quicker (alongside other additional projects, etc).
It plausibly will face more competition from smaller companies who are willing to work at a lower profit margin or who simply have lower costs,
but again, if one of those companies does find a 'gusher', they will likely bring in a 'major' better capapble of most efficiently operationalizing it.
Harvesters at the top of the game in terms of Rank CAN focus on max rank Nodes, where they will simply have the normal mix of standard vs. Gushers,
or they can focus on slightly lower Ranks, either exploring themself and just working faster at everything, or possibly getting 'handed' Gushers to exploit more quickly/economically.
That dynamic also promotes developing/extracting a resource which plausibly more PCs can use
(assuming max Rank resources will be relevant for max Rank gear that only benefits max Rank PCs):
Max Rank resources will likely be powerful and useful for high rank PCs, but on a settlement basis,
buffing up their 2nd tier members who outnumber the max rank members 20:1 might be more effective,
they can still pursue max rank resources normally but not focus on them as strongly as if that is the primary goal...
i.e. they may divert max Rank harvester to 'lesser tier' Gushers, because doing so accomplishes the most 'good'.
...Which effectively helps strengthen the power of lower rank/experienced PCs, by increasing the supply of resources relevant to their gear tier, benefitting from the productivity of advanced PCs.
Kind of like how BMW, Mercedes, etc, like making cheaper models but which still command a price premium, to target a larger 'aspirational' mass market.
In addition to the tiers of Nodes themselves, similar dynamics can be involved due to other factors relevant to harvesting:
Nodes in 'Monster Hexes' or otherwise dangerous areas (which could be PVP Banditry/War) may tend to be 'fuller'
because the monsters/threat inhibit the hex at large from getting 'tapped out' from other Nodes being harvested,
so the 'cost' of reliably harvesting those is higher (dealing with Monster/Bandit/War threat with more guards, including for transporting the resources)
but the pay-back is proportionately more... Certain rare resources may in fact tend to be found only in Monster Hexes, which puts them in a highe cost market niche,
even if the technical resource tier (giving the minimum harvesting skill required) isn't the "maximum" found in the game.
In such a 'high cost' environment (required guards, etc), it may very well make alot of sense to employ "prospectors"
to find the resource Nodes (which may not be especially high tier, thus a large base of prospectors can fulfill this role)
and only when "Gushers" are found is a large harvesting company sent in with heavy guard to handle the removal of a large amount of material all at once,
using a higher ranked Harvester to let the operation complete as quickly as possible, thus less guard-hours to monopolize.
The prospectors for this type of operation themselves may specialize by being especially skilled at combat/stealth/etc,
i.e. reducing the need for their own guard contingent, and pocketing the cost that would normally go to paying for a guard.
This would be in contrast to a build more solely focused on harvesting, splitting the focus more towards combat/stealth/etc
means their Harvesting Rank will be lower, but they can more efficiently fill this certain niche.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Stephen Cheney addressed this very well in Goblinworks Blog: Some Good Reason for Your Little Black Backpack - Post #300.
Thanks. This made a couple of really good points about controls in the marketplace. Do you have any additional posts where the Devs talk about advancement and application of skills, feats, etc?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also like the 'prospectors' idea, and would be glad if the system implemented allowed for that type of play. The biggest concern there for me is that 'motherlodes' aren't permanent, they are very semi-permanent, from what I understand. Meaning, if you don't set up on them within a short-ish time limit, they despawn, and if you do set up on them it's basically a ticking clock until that particular 'motherlode' runs dry. One problem I see here is that an individual prospector would have to make some very rapid negotiations to sell off this node's location before it despawns, depending on exact node despawn times and the ability of players to reach a relatively remote location, both of which are pretty nebulous at the moment. However, I don't think that's an issue that needs to be resolved in game systems, as this simply means prospector players have to play smarter and set up deals beforehand with major companies, or just work as a part of a company with unorthodox methods.
Though I agree that the discovering player should be able to take part in the celebration inherent in discovering something special like a 'motherlode', I don't think restricting operating of such nodes to the one that finds them is the best solution to the issue, and I hope the development team reconsiders this mechanic carefully.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'll toss this out there again...
I just hope that they include the ability for the person who discovers the node/gusher to be able to sell/pass their rights of discovery to another party. It makes more sense to me that the people out discovering such nodes (especially the more precious nodes in more dangerous locales) would be individuals and groups skilled at exploration, not necessarily the people skilled at digging/chopping/reaping. Groups like the newly formed Path Forgers, or TEO's Explorer's League or the scouting side of Pax's The Watch, would all have far more to do, as well as another means of making money if this type of information sales were available in the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The only objection I have to that is that discovering a 'gusher node' does in fact require skill at gathering. This is because the only way these nodes pop up is through 'gathering', or single player resource gathering. Groups such as the Path Forgers and Explorer's League could still have people dedicated to uncovering the nodes to sell, but these characters would have to specialize at prospecting, raising their collection skill enough to access the nodes.
However, I agree with the basic principle that people should be able to trade off or participate in the 'gusher' as they desire, with the additional caveat that should they choose to get their allies in to help them harvest the 'gusher node', the system shouldn't incentivize crowding the original finder out. I do believe developing such a "have your cake and eat it too" system is possible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Shane,
I understand your objection (or partial objection :) ). I'll use Hobs as an example. I do intend to learn and practice a little bit of node harvesting...the chip-chip for 1-5 strikes to gather a small amount of the resource. So I will have the skill for that. However, I have no interest in being involved in the full scale extraction process necessary for gushers. I don't want to spend the time on it, nor will I have the backing of a company or settlement to defend the site from the ensuing monster attacks. What I would be interested in doing is letting others know about it so that they can take over from there. I know - that's Hobs - a character who certainly won't fit the norm.
However, many explorers may wish to do the same. They may want to gain enough in whichever type of harvesting to fill their pack with small amounts as they explore, and have enough skill to uncover gushers without being the one to set up and man a full scale extraction of that resource. that they could be able to do so for their company/settlement (be the resource scout) or be contracted to do it for another, seems like a very entertaining and profitable role to fill in PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with you fully. Just wanted to point out that discovering gushers requires training in the skill.
Just curious, what do you have in mind for gusher collection? Did you want to see it much the same as announced, with the change that the gusher isn't bound to the discoverer, or do you think another system might work better?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think I like finder keeper.
It's very ruggedly individual so if you go out and find stuff you get the stuff. No one can zoom it when you're not looking and you can't loose it to friendly force (handing it over to your company etc.) if there were a deed system.
This is going to encourage specialization in collection and if you see something outside your field you tell your friend who is into that. Even make a roaming group using their varied specialties until they find a mothernode.
I COPYRIGHT THE TERM MOTHERNODE RIGHT NOW.
Finding mothernodes shouldn't be a viable career imo. It's just getting paid extra to wander around collecting stuff for yourself without doing the real work of producing resources. Add that expense to everything else involved with camps and you have economically unviable resources compared to resources from non-purchased mothernodes.
Crafting requiring xp opportunity cost and relying on specialization in my experience makes for a better, more robust system with more player interaction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure where you're coming from with "It's just getting paid extra to wander around collecting stuff for yourself without doing the real work of producing resources". How can you say it's economically unviable without knowing the cost of a kit, the price a prospector would ask, or any other costs or returns involved? I think that may be jumping the gun a bit.
Crafting can still require a significant XP investment and specialization. Nothing about resource gathering changes that. Are you saying you think gathering should also require a significant XP investment and specializations? Because if that's the case, I haven't heard anything to say it won't yet.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have clarification question about salvage.
1.) When goblin armor get scrapped can it be turned into a.) either iron or leather pick only one, or b.) iron and leather (if you have sufficient skill in both refines?) a la refining EVE mods?
Would a dedicated salvaging skillset be a viable personal income and useful link in the production chain.
And now about gathering.
2.) When you identify a resource node, before you extract from it, how much can you tell about the quality level of what it will produce? i.e. "This is QL 100 and requires skill level 6" or "This is QL 80-120-ish you need 6 levels of skill to find out"
3.) When that node turns into a mothernode can we infer from the quality level of first materials what the next batch will be? i.e. QL 230 = 72% etc. or at least a predictable range to help decide if it's worth setting up a camp?
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Goblin Squad Member
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How can you say it's economically unviable without knowing the cost of a kit, the price a prospector would ask, or any other costs or returns involved?
We don't have to know the exact integer costs.
Look at the expenses of a camp:
Kit
Storage container
Transport vehicle
Banditry losses (spread out over the successful camps)
Potential: merc guard protection
All of those expenses get bundled and passed on down the production chain when the product is sold, cost X. If you also have to pay Y coin to someone that finds it for you, that cost that is passed on too.
Here are 5 wagons of lumber from finder-miners for $X each.
Here are 3 wagons of identical lumber from deed sales for $X+Y each.
Which will you buy?
Either scenario 1. there's enough lumber that people will only buy at X, or 2. there's a shortage of lumber so they buy the X then the X+Y. So in 1 the deed sale product never moves and in 2 the demand causes the price of deeds (and thereby the cost of deed sale lumber) to rise until we get to scenario 1. Both cases the deed sale product is unviable in the long term.
There's even a chance the deed-sale product is so expensive, say 1.5X, that the cost of finder-miner product is artificially raised to 1.3X and that will cause a slow in the production chain and overall economy. It all depends on the proportion of deed cost to overall camp expenses but the deed cost is insignificant in only a small percentage of the possibilities.